


Départ

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Advent Challenge 2010, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coward wishes to go abroad with Blackwood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Départ

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day eleven of the adventchallenge.Prompt: Holidays. the_me09 suggested the boys traveling. This is what happened.

Blackwood has known Coward for barely one week when Nicholas says it.

"Take me with you."

Coward is lying naked on his stomach, chin propped up on two fine boned hands. The smell of sex lingers in the air and the curve of Coward's back as he swings his feet back and forth is still glittering with sweat.

Blackwood stops fastening his shirt and leans back against the dresser.

"Take you with me?" he asks.

Coward stretches and the back of his feet almost touch his head. He looks younger than his eighteen years, eyes narrowed impishly as he smiles. He shrugs one shoulder and then lets it collapse, rolling over onto his back.

The top button of Blackwood's shirt lies still between his index finger and thumb. It's loose, barely hanging on by its thread.

"I don't think Lord Coward would appreciate me absconding to France with his only son, Nicholas," he says.

There are cats screeching at each other in the alleyway outside, fighting or fucking. Coward's head is almost hanging off the foot of the bed and Blackwood can't take his eyes off the lily white line of his throat.

"I don't care," Coward says.

Blackwood snorts. "You know, I could almost believe that."

Upside down, Coward's grin looks rather more like a snarl. He bites when they fuck, Blackwood has a litter of dark purple marks across his shoulders to testify to that. His smile, a shade too wide, was what caught Blackwood first.

Coward is a shade too everything and it amazes him that others don't seem to notice. His eyes alight, bright with scrutiny, that startling empyrean blue.

" _You_ don't care," Coward says. "I know you're not scared of them, Henry. Don't you think I know that? They told me about you-"

"They?"

"Everyone. Everyone whispers about your father's death. About that speech you made to the House that nearly gave Lord Campbell a fit. The kind of company you keep."

"Which is why you sought me out. Because of my reputation."

Blackwood dangles the string of condescension before Coward and Nicholas sits up, his eyes blazing. The fervour on his face is almost childlike in its utter sincerity.

"Because you are _unafraid_ ," Coward says.

He stares at Blackwood for a moment longer and then his gaze drops, his fingers clutch the bedspread, he wets his lips. Blackwood watches as a blush daubs pink across his cheeks and into the hollow of his throat.

"Plato wrote of a symposium at Athens," Coward says, speaking low and fast. "On the nature of love. Aristophanes was present and the tale he told was of a time when man lived with two heads, four arms and four legs. So powerful that the gods grew fearful and split them in two."

"Amusing," Blackwood says.

Coward shakes his head. "Perhaps. But the message, the message he begs us to take to heart. We are incomplete creatures, searching for our other half."

There is a silence. Coward's jaw is clenched tight, as though he is forcing himself not to speak further. Blackwood realizes that his top button is no longer attached to his shirt, he has pulled it clean off.

"Of course you're right. I do care what my father thinks. I care what all of them think," Coward says.

Blackwood frowns, but before the disappointment has time to settle in his stomach, Coward is on his feet and walking toward him, completely unabashed. The fine, downy hair that covers his chest is trembling along with his breath. He looks up at Blackwood so solemnly.

"I will not risk my reputation. That is _my_ coin. I plan to profit from it." A pause, then quickly, all at once. "We will put it to work to do great things, I know it."

Blackwood can think of only one thing to say.

"Come with me."

-

Blackwood has known Coward for barely a week when he starts to think that Aristophanes was right.

It's not until three days later, walking down a side street in Calais, that he knows for sure.

Coward has told his parents that he's staying on at Cambridge over Christmas to focus more intently on his studies.

"Well my French is certainly coming on a treat." Coward is laughing as he walks ahead, taking circling steps, grinning up at the buildings that rise on either side of them.

The thief is out of the shadows and pinning Coward to the wall before the smile has time to fade from Blackwood's face.

Coward is quicker than both of them. The stiletto is in his hand and then buried within the thief's guts, one, two and out again, three. Blackwood's eyes hardly believe the flash of dark metal, they see instead, an embrace as the thief gasps and collapses forward into Coward's arms.

But perhaps there _is_ something intimate in the way Coward hugs him tight and then lowers him tenderly to the ground. His right hand is spotted with blood as he offers it to Blackwood. He tilts his head, _come,_ and Blackwood takes his arm as they stroll back out into a world that is theirs for the taking.


End file.
